Having recently consulted goat entrails and my Ouija board, I offer my own jeremiad.
Entrails tell me there is not much of an “arms-length market” in the oil bid’ness.
Had our national treasury not been so deliberately run into a ditch, it would make more sense if our government could participate by making its own moderating, hedge investments in vital resources, sort of like a “virtual emergency oil stockpile.”
As things stand, Obama (naivete be upon him) is right about one thing: Our federal government needs to coordinate a consumption or fuel tax policy, to wean energy users to alternative sources. IF we could trust our governance, hardship could be mitigated by applying tax revenues to rebates or infrastructure, rather than to enriching those who seek and gamble on our demise.
Otherwise, we shall come soon to need to socialize the oil industry.
Meantime, capitalism has evolved an especially volatile, Machiavellian game for bold, high stakes deceivers, addicted to playing markets in a nether echelon. These progeny of the House of Rothschild have no star to guide them, but only the rush from pursuing and occasionally winning ever more outlandish jackpots.
Capitalism, in pure form, is not “the best system.” Rather, up to now, capitalism has served us better than any other system only because its natural excesses have been regulated and moderated in respect of an assimilated sense of Judeo-Christian ethics (which is now being quickly dismantled by an unholy alliance among secular leftists and blue blood rightists).
If we wish, for our children, to help preserve the best system, i.e., Western Civilization plus Capitalism, and not to succumb to history’s inexorable cycle of rage and despair, we, including blue blood Republicans among us, had best recover our senses regarding the absolute necessity of a source of “national ethics” — and right quick!
The present “gimme mine” ethics that lures and blinds Democrats and Republicans alike, funded by the likes of Soros and friends, has little to do with enlightened empathy, but much to do with high-echelon games-playing addictions. Rank and file Democrats are being used as mere mice, to be piped off to serfdom.
The game is all about who gets to “win” in order to become Jabba the Hut — the ultimate liberal.
*******************
Oil Problems:
Snippets from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/20/AR2008082003898.html?referrer=emailarticle :
A Few Speculators Dominate Vast Market for Oil Trading
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Regulators had long classified a private Swiss energy conglomerate called Vitol as a trader that primarily helped industrial firms that needed oil to run their businesses.
But when the Commodity Futures Trading Commission examined Vitol's books last month, it found that the firm was in fact more of a speculator, holding oil contracts as a profit-making investment rather than a means of lining up the actual delivery of fuel. Even more surprising to the commodities markets was the massive size of Vitol's portfolio -- at one point in July, the firm held 11 percent of all the oil contracts on the regulated New York Mercantile Exchange.
The discovery revealed how an individual financial player had gained enormous sway over the oil market without the knowledge of regulators. Other CFTC data showed that a significant amount of trading activity was concentrated in the hands of just a few speculators.
The CFTC, which learned about the nature of Vitol's activities only after making an unusual request for data from the firm, now reports that financial firms speculating for their clients or for themselves account for about 81 percent of the oil contracts on NYMEX, a far bigger share than had previously been stated by the agency. That figure may rise in coming weeks as the CFTC checks the status of other big traders.
Some lawmakers have blamed these firms for the volatility of oil prices, including the tremendous run-up that peaked earlier in the summer.
"It is now evident that speculators in the energy futures markets play a much larger role than previously thought, and it is now even harder to accept the agency's laughable assertion that excessive speculation has not contributed to rising energy prices," said Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.). He added that it was "difficult to comprehend how the CFTC would allow a trader" to acquire such a large oil inventory "and not scrutinize this position any sooner."
....
The biggest players on the commodity exchanges often operate as "swap dealers" who primarily invest on behalf of hedge funds, wealthy individuals and pension funds, allowing these investors to enjoy returns without having to buy an actual contract for oil or other goods.
....
To build up the vast holdings this practice entails, some swap dealers have maneuvered behind the scenes, exploiting their political influence and gaps in oversight to gain exemptions from regulatory limits and permission to set up new, unregulated markets. Many big traders are active not only on NYMEX but also on private and overseas markets beyond the CFTC's purview. These openings have given the firms nearly unfettered access to the trading of vital goods, including oil, cotton and corn.
....
A second turning point came when Congress passed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 [MY COMMENT: AKA, “YEPAW,” or “Your Elected Prostitutes At Work”]. The law formally allowed investors to trade energy commodities on private electronic platforms outside the purview of regulators. Critics have called this piece of legislation the "Enron loophole," saying Enron played a role in crafting it.
....
In the coming years, commodity investments by funds could grow to $1 trillion, veteran hedge fund manager Michael Masters said in testimony before the Senate earlier this year. In an interview, he said this trend could raise commodity prices for everyone in the coming years and "have catastrophic economic effects on millions of already stressed U.S. consumers."
....
In the coming months, swap dealers expect to have yet another venue for oil speculation. The CFTC has stated it would not stand in the way of trading in U.S. oil contracts overseas in Dubai. Goldman Sachs and Vitol are among the major investors in this new exchange.
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MY COMMENTS:
A series of strictures constrained our founders to find common principles under which to unite or die. Now, we have so successfully satiated most needs as to deceive ourselves that we need no longer feel constrained by principles.
Principally, Democrats now orient towards class, not principles. Sorted by income, if you are in the lower 75 percent, Democrats target you as a potential voter. Regardless of legal status, felony convictions, addictions, vices, or desires, Democrats will promise to serve you, so long as you “give back” or are among the lower 75 percent.
Principally, Republicans orient towards short-term advantages, not principles. So long as you exploit a niche, Republicans target you as a potential voter. Regardless of cumulative detriment to environment, Republicans will promise to serve your niche, so long as you “give back.”
Principally, among those who lead our parties of Democrats and Republicans, few principles are found.
International moguls, corporations, and lobbyists, who thrive on global and market volatility for reducing ordinary persons to debt slaves, control the funding of our politicians, thereby directing our politics, thereby directing our academia and media, and thereby directing the political opinions of our weak minded, dis-educated, professoriate and electorate.
Imagine a “friendly,” high stakes, volatile poker game among Bill Gates, Warren Buffett,
Many such moguls, admirably, seem not to want the bulk of their wealth to go to their children, to establish any plutocracy. To what, then, do they wish their wealth to go? Do they wish to finance: (1) civilizing purposes (dignified charity); or (2) the efficient reduction of all non-entrepreneurs to serf labor within some sort of super-efficient, world-wide, organized “Borg” (herd organization); or (3) their kin in spirit for perpetuating ever-recurring incarnations of “Jabba the Hut” (chaining all to serve whims of the fittest whip-master)?
Most of us likely hope the better of the moguls among us will elect alternative (1), but we fear alternative (3).
Will not a mogul who has sacrificed years and years to acquire great wealth and power often tend to have become so conditioned and addicted as to desire such game to continue, even to be played by a successor Jabba?
After all, how often do current moguls (and even entire generations) sacrifice and enslave their posterity to the rule of dead hands of past emperors (see http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_North_American_Review/Volume_171/Issue_526/The_Empire_of_the_Dead)?
Shall our political parties ever facilitate our summoning of will to move us towards principles above mere greed, narcissism, hedonism, filth, and degradation, which could empower us to live as more than mere poker chips and to rise above petty financial jealousies and exploitations?
If not, I shall remain a passionate Independent.
*****
Game: Soap Bomb Hippies: http://www.fundmental.com/flash/recreate68/.
Comment: Impose tariffs on foreign oil; impose export taxes on home produced oil that is exported; increase fuel taxes; encourage alternative development of nuclear, solar, and wind power; encourage development of more resources and refineries at home.
4 comments:
See http://www.americanpatrol.com/REFERENCE/Alinsky-SaulRef.html.
Looks like power holders for both Dems and Repubs follow Alinsky’s rules:
Example: “Rules for Radicals teaches the organizer that he must give a moral appearance (as opposed to behaving morally): "All effective action requires the passport of morality."”
“"The first rule of power tactics is: power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have."
"Wherever possible go outside the experience of the enemy. Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat."
"Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules. You can kill them with this. They can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity."
Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also, it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage."”
....
“One of the criteria for picking the target is the target's vulnerability ... the other important point in the choosing of a target is that it must be a personification, not something general and abstract."”
REGARDING WARREN BUFFET:
See http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_16_56/ai_n13684021
National Review
AUGUST 23, 2004 VOL. LVI, NO. 16
Buffetted
The Sage of Omaha loves the estate tax—
as well he might
J O H N B E R L AU
“If a family is forced to sell as a result of the death of the founder, so that you’ve got a 50 percent estate tax due nine months after death, that naturally depresses the price,” notes Harold Apolinsky, an estate-planning attorney at the Birmingham, Ala., law firm of Sirote & Permutt.
“When you’re forced to sell to fund the tax, there’s more of an opportunity for the buyer to negotiate a lower price.”
In Buffett’s career, this opportunity has come many times. Take his acquisition of the Buffalo Evening News (now the Buffalo News) in the 1970s. His biggest acquisition up to that time, the newspaper became very profitable, and a stepping stone on Buffett’s journey from multimillionaire investor to multibillionaire titan of industry. But—according to a just-published history of the Buffalo News—the paper would likely never have gone up for sale had it not been for the estate tax.
….
Is Buffett supporting the estate tax out of self-interest? The Buffalo News’s Light, who mostly praises Buffett’s tenure as owner of the paper and considers himself a friend, says with a chuckle: “One thing you have to know is that Warren Buffett is not a dumb man.
….
And Buffett’s sudden concern about the trade deficit and advocacy of protectionism comes at a time when Berkshire is entering the textile industry, with acquisitions such as Fruit of the Loom, Ltd., that would be hurt by foreign competition.
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The interests of Post shareholder Buffett and the other so-called progressive billionaires deserve the same scrutiny. To borrow the Post’s phrasing, the media need to explore the “subtle intricacies” of the relationships between politicians who support big-government policies and the businessmen who benefit from them.
******
REGARDING BILL GATES:
From http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1999/03/15/256491/index.htm:
On March 4, 1993, the Wall Street Journal published a story reporting that Gates' money manager at the time, Andrew Evans, along with his wife, Ann Llewellyn, had years earlier been convicted on charges related to bank fraud. Evans was an old friend of the Microsoft CEO, and Gates was said to be helping him out by employing him. In any event, the article created an uproar. Gates' mother, Mary, a powerful influence on Bill, was said to be disturbed that her son had a former jailbird running his personal portfolio. Evans had to go. Gates needed to find a new money manager.
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He favors cable stocks such as TCI and Liberty Media, as well as Cox Communications and Barry Diller's USA Networks.
COMMENTS:
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cox_Cable.
Also, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cox_Communications.
Cox Communications, also known as Cox Cable and formerly Cox Broadcasting Corporation is a privately owned subsidiary of Cox Enterprises providing digital cable television and telecommunications services in the United States.
Also, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cox_Newspapers and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cox_Enterprises.
See also http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2004/05/03/gates_040503.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft.
… issue in question was how easy or hard it was for America Online users to download and install Netscape Navigator onto a Windows PC. Microsoft's videotape showed the process as being quick and easy, resulting in the Netscape icon appearing on the user's desktop. The government produced its own videotape of the same process, revealing that Microsoft's videotape had edited out a long and complex part of the procedure and that the Netscape icon was not placed on the desktop, requiring a user to search for it. Brad Chase, a Microsoft vice president, verified the government's tape and conceded that Microsoft's own tape was inaccurate.
When the judge ordered Microsoft to offer a version of Windows which did not include Internet Explorer, Microsoft responded that the company would offer manufacturers a choice: one version of Windows that was obsolete, or another that did not work properly. The judge asked, "It seemed absolutely clear to you that I entered an order that required that you distribute a product that would not work?" David D. Cole, a Microsoft vice president, replied, "In plain English, yes. We followed that order. It wasn't my place to consider the consequences of that."
….
Judge Jackson issued his findings of fact on November 5, 1999, which stated that Microsoft's dominance of the personal computer operating systems market constituted a monopoly, and that Microsoft had taken actions to crush threats to the monopoly, including Apple, Java, Netscape, Lotus Notes, Real Networks, Linux, and others. Then on April 3, 2000, he issued a two-part ruling: his conclusions of law were that Microsoft had committed monopolization, attempted monopolization, and tying in violation of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act ….
Jean-Louis Gassée, CEO of Be Inc., which at the time made a competing operating system which eventually folded in the face of Microsoft's dominance, criticized the emphasis on the "packaging problem."
….
Instead, he argued, Microsoft's true anticompetitive clout was in the rebates it offered to OEMs preventing other operating systems from getting a foothold in the market.
Regarding T. Boone Pickens:
Snippets from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._Boone_Pickens:
Pickens has recently begun buying up subsurface water rights in Texas. CBS News reported in 2006 that Pickens' company, Mesa Water, bought ground water rights for 200,000 acres (800 km²) in Roberts County, Texas for $75 million, estimating the investment will be worth $1 billion. "'I know what people say — water's a lot like air. Do you charge for air? 'Course not; you shouldn't charge for water,' says Pickens. 'Well, OK, watch what happens. You won't have any water.'"
Pickens has begun speaking out on the issue of so-called "peak oil", claiming that world oil production is about to enter a period of irrevocable decline. He has called for the construction of more nuclear power plants, the use of natural gas to power the country's transportation systems, and the promotion of alternative energy. Pickens' involvement with the natural gas fueling campaign is long-running. He formed Pickens Fuel Corp. in 1997 and began touting natural gas as the best vehicular fuel alternative because it is a domestic resource that, among many advantages, is cleaner-burning (Natural Gas Vehicles or NGVs emit up to 30% less pollution than gasoline or diesel vehicles) and reduces foreign oil consumption. Reincorporated as Clean Energy in 2001, the company now owns and operates natural gas fueling stations from British Columbia to the Mexican border.
….
Pickens "said he has stopped giving to political campaigns and renounced his previous Republican affiliation in his drive to focus the nation's attention on the need for immediate, drastic action on energy" such as solar and wind. The Washington Post says that "perhaps the strangest role" Pickens "has fashioned for himself is his current one: the billionaire speculator as energy wise man, an oil-and-gas magnate as champion of wind power, and a lifetime Republican who has become a fellow traveler among environmentally minded Democrats -- even though he helped finance the 'Swift boat' ads that savaged" Sen. John F. Kerry's presidential campaign.
OIL, COLD WAR, AND IRAN:
Putin’s Strategic Game
Thursday, August 14, 2008 9:28 AM
By: Kenneth R. Timmerman
Snippets from http://www.newsmax.com/timmerman/putin_strategic_game/2008/08/14/121929.html:
Russia’s invasion of Georgia was not a hastily-improvised event, in response to provocation, but had been planned well in advance.
Russia moved the equivalent of two heavy divisions into the mountainous terrain of northern Georgia, in addition to mobilizing its navy to blockade the Georgian coast and its air force to launch hundreds of bombing raids. These are not the type of things any modern nation can do overnight. Russia’s planning shows foresight, and intent.
So besides reasserting Russia’s control over its “near abroad,” and opposing the expansion of NATO into Georgia, what is czar Vladimir Putin’s game?
....
Why would the Russians attempt to take out the recently-built pipeline, which carries energy resources from Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan to Western Europe?
Because the Russians and their strategic partner, the Islamic Republic of Iran, have been opposed to the pipeline since it was first planned in the mid-1990s. Through terrorist proxies in Turkey, where the pipeline feeds into the Ceyhan terminal on the Mediterranean, they have repeatedly sabotaged it.
The Clinton administration worked with British Petroleum and with the governments of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey to get this pipeline built. Today, it brings approximately one million barrels of oil per day to Europe, just under 7 percent of the European Union’s daily consumption.
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The message to Europe is crystal clear: defy Russia, and Putin will shut down Europe’s oil and gas supplies.
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The timing of the current conflict in Georgia has not been lost on Iran’s leaders. “They are convinced that Russia will not help the United States at the U.N. Security Council in getting a new sanctions resolution,” my sources say.
There are many objective reasons to believe that the Russians will refuse U.S. efforts to get a 4th U.N. Security Council sanctions resolution against Iran.
Just two days before the invasion of Georgia, Russia again came to the aide of the Iranian regime, even as the United States and its allies were counting on Russia’s support to increase pressure on Tehran.
....
Russia’s double-talk on Iran is reminiscent of Cold War propaganda, when Soviet “diplomats” lied egregiously without even a smirk of shame. Putin’s actions are a throwback to the era of superpower rivalry.
Right at the center of this deadly mix lies Iran. Russia has long considered the Islamic Republic of Iran as a strategic partner. Throughout the 1990s, they helped Iran build the long-range ballistic missiles that today are pointed at Israel and tomorrow will be able to reach Europe. They also helped Iran to develop its nuclear capabilities, and earlier this year delivered enriched uranium fuel for Iran’s reactor at Bushehr.
Just one week ago, few would have believed it was in Russia’s interest to fight a full-blown conventional war in Europe. Who can say with confidence that Putin believes it is in Russia’s interest to oppose a nuclear-armed Iran?
After all, an Iran armed — or better yet, capable of arming itself — with nuclear weapons would dramatically shift the strategic balance in the Persian Gulf against the United States and our allies. A nuclear-capable Iran would make the United States more hesitant to project power, for fear of the consequences. And it would undoubtedly have a dramatic impact on the price of oil, which would benefit both Russia and Iran.
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